Those prices are typically underwritten by the local electric utilities. They supply the bulbs to the retailer at below cost, and take the difference as investment in energy efficiency, getting tax credits in the process.
CFLs are approaching actual retail prices below $2, but as the Marketing Eye of Sauron has fixed its gaze on LED, I wouldn't expect much more investment in CFL technology.

There's a good reason people are looking so hard at LEDs rather than CFLs; LEDs are simply better technology. The best LEDs have much higher luminous efficacy than any fluorescent. For example, Cree is selling LED fixtures that put out around 125 lumen/watt vs. just under 100 lumen/watt for the best fluorescent lights. It's actually more lopsided than that sounds, because the LED figure includes all the losses, while the fluorescent is for light coming out of the tube, not the entire device, and it ignor

Here's what I do. Go to the store and pick up a package of 100 W incandescents and look at the output in lumens. Then try to find an LED light that even comes close. The only ones that come close are gigantic and very expensive. They don't even fit in the fixtures.

Maybe you're not looking very hard. Typical incandescents get 16 lumens per Watt, CFLs get 60 lm/W. That means that your 100W incandescent would generate around 1600lm, and you'd need a 26W CFL for equivalent. That's not a round figure, but 25W is and a 10 second search tells me I can pick up 25W spiral CFLs which are about the same size as an incandescent for around £5.

I was actually a bit surprised by those numbers (maybe Wikipedia is wrong?), because I found that the light level increased whe

Assuming they fit in the fixture I really like putting 100W equivalent CFLs into fixtures too. I had a bunch of ceiling lights rated at 40W. The room was quite dimly lit with incadenant (more of a mood light than a reading light). Replace those with 25W CFLs and the room is nice and bright, I save power and I'm well within the quoted rating for the fixture (how much of a safety factor that is I don't know but it also helps the fixtures not be so hot to the touch).

That is a widely held opinion, but when you factor in the lifespan of the bulb, they are cheaper to operate than either cfls or incandescents.
The only good reason not to make the investment, being that it has a 0 risk return, is that they get cheaper and better in quality as time goes on.
Ive personally had all LED lighting for a while and the only frustrating thing is i have no need for the new models since not one has failed in 2 years, and they wont for a while.

There are eight bulb sockets in two of my ceiling fans. I've lost a total of three CFLs in about three years in those fixtures. Funny enough, the fixture that splits the power for the fan and the lamp at the wallplate has lost more bulbs than the one that supplies one run to the fan and uses on-fan switches.

I know that I've lost a CFL somewhere else, probably on one of those three-directional pole lights, but I can't place when/where.

My CFL failures were in "regular" sealed ceiling sconces. They'd cook the bulbs. There was no warning on the bulbs or fixtures about it. Ones with good ventilation work fine. My CFL outdoors in Alaska would work "fine" in -40, though it would take hours to warm up. But leaving it on 24/7 cost less than a few hours a day with the old incandescent. Never did try LEDs in that one. It took special effort to get to (multiple screws, and up a ladder), so I put in a long-life CFL and left it alone. I have

I have some LED lights around and they have their place but in my opinion, they are not cost effective yet.

Thankfully, your opinion is unrelated to fact. I've never seen any actual case where LEDs weren't cost effective. The only times I've seen people argue it was when their opinion was used to trump fact. "this light 'seems' better, so I only want this one."

Bad power factor isn't a generation expense. It is a distribution one, and one with relatively fixed infrastructure costs. The solution is to put some capacitor banks in each neighborhood. They are pretty small devices [tnmagazine.org] and utility-grade capacitors last a long time. It makes a lot more sense, costwise and environmentally-wise, to install 30-50 year design life capacitors in a neighborhood than to install power factor correcting capacitors in every consumer electronic device.

My price point for LEDs is under $10. You can find them cheap on Amazon and the reviews help make sure you're not getting low-quality bulbs. I've bought some LED floodlights and some LED ceiling fan bulbs for under $10, and they've been great so far.

In my case it was more of a "hmm, would this work better" and then getting the same ones so the kitchen looks right:) The lights are certainly brighter than the incandescent bulbs were and there are 6 of the floods so I'm reasonably sure I'm saving a few bucks on replacing them. $130 worth? That I don't know yet.:)

I've been stocking up on LEDs from Home Depot, also subsidized by the power company. $3 per bulb, but now I kinda want to check the Goodwill in my area. Makes me wonder how Fox News will spin this so that LEDs will be the downfall of Western civilization.

I just got a 60 watt eq. daylight LED bulb at Home Depot for $5.67 IT's a nice flat one to, and it can be dimmed. Phillips was the brand."I found $1 dimmable 40-watt equivalent LEDs at Goodwill a few months ago."sweet.

Do you have Lidl or Aldi in your country? I bought some 820lm/60W equivalent (more like 80W incandescent really) bulbs for Â£5 each there, so that's maybe $10 USD. They are dimmable and rated for 20k hours, and put out nice light with no flicker.

You can purchase LED "tube" replacements for fluorescents. We've been testing them out at my workplace, and, generally speaking, the building staffers seem to like them better than old fluoresent lamps. The catch is that you have to re-wire the fixture and bypass the old ballast module.

The catch is that you have to re-wire the fixture and bypass the old ballast module.

Not anymore. Cree recently came out with a design that is a direct replacement for T8 fluorescent tubes [cree.com]; you can plug it into an existing fixture without needing to bypass the ballast. It's supposed to give 100 lumen/watt with a CRI of 90, which is very good, and they're selling for about $30/each.

If you're rewiring and going all-LED, you can apparently save quite a bit with a DC main for lighting. And this also makes it easy to have USB and similar outlets for device charging. I wish more new builds would install a DC main alongside the AC...

You'll lose more with wall warts (or in-wall warts) than with 12V wiring. Most of the DC house lighting I've seen uses 12V. The rules around here have the cutoff for "high voltage" at 12V, so everything is 12V or less. In the US the cutoff was 48V (laws bought by AT&T), so you are more likely to see greater than 12V only in the USA (except for external power supplies, that don't have the same rules as house wiring). Running a 12V feed in the conduit with 120V A/C is illegal. The inductance on the 1

I've been told by a licensed electrician otherwise. Maybe he was just fishing for more work, but the rules he was giving us prohibited high voltage near the low voltage lines. That kind of wiring took down TWA-800.

Between 2 and 3 years but it did not fail, so I don't know how long it would've lasted. I replaced it with a higher wattage "daylight" bulb a few months ago. I really like the much-less-yellow look of the daylight bulbs now and I don't think I'd use any other hue.

Agreed, I worded it badly. How about: ''How long had the last energy saving bulb that you replaced been working ?'' Even then it is sloppy since some bulbs will be used a lot (eg in the kitchen) whereas others very little (in the garage or spare bedroom). But it is not intended to be a scientific survey.

The problem is it depends if you are kind of idiot who buys the cheapest, lowest quality bulbs they can find or if you get reasonable quality ones. Most of the people moaning about bulb lifetime seem to have bought cheap rubbish, and probably never spent a penny on their home electrics either.

There are often good reasons to go cheap. If better technology is waiting in the wings, it doesn't make sense to invest a lot of money in high quality, long lasting implementations of inferior tech. Look at the homes of the rich of the early 20th century and earlier. They have high quality obsolete tech all over the place.

For fluorescent lighting, I replaced magnetic ballasts with electronic ballasts. They are more efficient. I also experimented and replaced a 2x40W fixture with a 2x32W. 32 watt flu

The youngest CFL I've replaced was, I think, 3 years old. I left most of them behind when I moved house after living in the same place for 7 years and most of the CFLs had never been replaced since I installed them shortly after moving in. I was a poor student back then, so all of them were the absolute cheapest that I could find.

My shortest CFL was a couple weeks. I got 6 months from 3 of my most recent LED lights. The CFL was "my fault" as it was in a ceiling fixture that was mostly sealed. That caused the CFL to overheat. CFLs are the worst for heat (at least the ones with the ballast in the bulb). LEDs aren't good with heat, but with external ballasts for nearly all, they do better than CFLs.

How on earth are you buying CFLs with only a 3-year warranty for $12 each? The only ones I've seen that are that expensive come with a 10-20 year warranty. 5 years is about the shortest I've seen and that's on ones that are under $1.

I have submitted a couple of polls in the past and what I have done is just separated the poll options on different lines. So in other words, you don't need any specific formatting, just something that a Slashdot editor person can read easily. That's how I understand it. I have put "Poll suggestion: (poll title)" as the subject.

One of my last purchase was the Phillips Hue starter kit which was like $200. And then I think I got some generic 40W style white LED bulbs for about $16. But I haven't used them yet so I'll just ignore them and go with the Hue and say $200 so I voted "Cost $20 or more"

The most recent bulb I replaced was the one in my oven. It had been burned out for years, but I decided to replace it when I was in there to replace a heating element. $4.50 for a tiny 40W bulb! I suppose a run-of-the-mill bulb isn't meant for use in a 500F environment, nor necessarily (in the U.S.) to be run from 2-phase power.

Yes, it was an incandescent - this is one situation where energy efficiency in lighting is a rather moot point. Bulbs in refrigerators, on the other hand...

Just so you know (and a lot of people get this mixed up), 120/240V in the U.S. is not 2-phase power (with the exception of one small hydroelectric served area of upstate NY, which actually has some relic 2-phase generators)! You are receiving single-phase power off a 3-phase transmission system (typically, one residential neighborhood will be on the same phase), with a center-tapped/center-grounded step-down transformer providing service to your home. "Split-phase" is a more appropriate nickname for a center-grounded single-phase electrical system.

Incandescents work best in harsh environments. CFLs don't like cold, and CFLs and LEDs don't like heat. In an oven, they'd need to use a remote-light (set in a cooler part, and light piped up to the inside)

My dad just had to buy a new light bulb for his very high end home theater projector. He said the bulb was $1,500. I know you could buy a projector for that price, but his particular projector ranges in price from $10,000 to $30,000 depending on model...so it makes sense to buy the replacement bulb.

My most recent acquisition was 2 cfl lamps included in a free energy-saver kit from the city. Included was a water saver showerhead, water-saver nozzles for the kitchen & bathroom faucets & 2 cfl lamps. Not bad for free. 'Course if you break down my tax bill I figure those cfl lamps cost about $22.25 each.

... the last time I bought light bulbs. We're still working through our collection of 100W light bulbs. I'd like to switch to low energy ones, but we have to piss off the climate change liars somehow.

Anyway, when I did buy them, I paid in sterling, not in these dollar thingies being quoted in the vote. It doesn't make it clear if it means Canadian dollars or Australian ones, and that would make the value different.

>It doesn't make it clear if it means Canadian dollars or Australian ones, and that would make the value different.

Actually, it's safest to assume that slashdot thinks in US$ -- like all the ads we Canucks get from below 49. And oddly enough, in the current market, A$, C$, US$ and NZ$ are about as close to each other as I remember ever having seen them. You have to hit the Fijian Dollar, Hong Kong Dollar or Namibian Dollar to get really wild fluctuations.

Wow. Glad you got that out. You and the other four guys on the internet that are 1) from a non-US country and 2) like to bitch about every fucking submission that doesn't follow euro standards really gotta get that out or you'll die right?

He claims to have paid in sterling - they don't use sterling in Europe. Learn your geography, goddamn ignorant Americunt. He's not European, he's a Britfag.

I swear converting from the incandescent to the LED style looks like the difference between the NCC-1701 and the NCC-1701D (reflector dish).Plus total cost of ownership will be lower (incl. energy used) if it lives anywhere near the quoted lifetime.

Each new clearance light fixture that I bought last week for my 1977 pop-up trailer came with two #194 wedge-base bulbs. The light fixtures cost $4 each. The plastic must be worth something, so I said "under a dollar".

I converted my entire apartment to CFL approximately 10 years ago. I have moved once since then...when I did the conversion I saved all of the incandescent bulbs the apartment complex put there, and just put them back when I left and took my CFL's with me. I have about 8 incandescent bulbs under my sink for when I move again (the apartment doesn't get to keep my CFL bulbs).
I've had to replace...1 CFL bulb since then. I am thinking about converting to LED's, but I haven't seen the need to replace perfec

1 Poor lumen maintenance.They dim over time by a large amount. Most often seen in Christmas Lights. My daughter took a string of blue LED's and used them as a nightlight in her room. about 1/2 were totally dead in 6 months. The remainer were all over the map in brighness, but all were much dimmer compaired to a string stored for Christmas used for comparison. Failure rate of decreased brightness by 1/2 percieved brightness in 6 months i

And even that may be an exaggeration, I know CFL's still claim they will last years. Most that I've used last months at most. I recently bought a couple LED flood lights on clearance, when I was looking for some other 40/60 watt bulbs I noticed a flood exactly the same as the one I had grabbed from clearance, same manufacturer, same lumens, same wattage, same packaging. Only difference was the "lasts up to" numbers, half of what they were on the clearance bulb.

Broke down and bought a Cree white LED equivalent of 100W, daylight color temp, for my bedroom, because I needed something dimmable yet not generating so much waste heat as the halogen it replaced. Not a single complaint about it, although the dimmer I'm using is from Ikea and sometimes if it's up all the way the lamp flickers faintly until I turn it down a fraction. More a problem with the dimmer than the lamp so far as I'm concerned. If the lamp lasts for years I'll consider it to be a successful experime

I can see from your very low user ID number that you've been here a long, long time (so have I, but I've had more than one user ID so only the most recent incarnation is high). There are polite people here.. and there there are the trolls and the jackasses. Apparently you've not encountered them; I envy you for that.

Old CFLs (Lights of America) were separate ballast, and the ballast was good enough (if you were lucky) to last through 4 bulbs. They lost in the marketplace because of higher initial cost, and the difficulty in finding replacement bulbs was another disadvantage.

With LEDs, the LEDs and their heatsinks are the expensive part and the part most likely to fail. Separation of ballast from LEDs does not make economic sense.

I bought a used lamp for $25 that came with two bulbs in it. But previous to that, the last time I acquired a light bulb separate from a device, it was free through my local utility's "order a free package of energy efficiency items!" program. It included two standard-base CFL bulbs, two candelabra base bulbs (ironically between ordering and getting delivery, we had replaced the last candelabra-bulb fixture in the house,) plus a low-flow water faucet attachment, and a couple other things I'm forgetting.

By chance, the last energy-saving light bulb that I've bought turned 1 year yesterday. It's a Philips 1055 lumens/13 watt LED that's roughly equivalent to a 75 watt incandescent. I had prevously been using a 800 lumens/15 watt CFL, but I thought it was too dim, and swapped it to our hallway. We have had mixed experiences with CFLs in our house. We found that in our dining room they would only last a few months, I think that they didn't like being turned on and off all the time and they were right in fro

I have a vacation rental property, and some of the bulbs are very hard to replace. I'm afraid that a tenant might try to do it and break the fixture. Also, they take R20 bulbs, and they tend to be expensive to begin with. So now I don't have to worry about the bulbs failing when I'm hundreds of miles away.

I also swapped out the ancient dimmer, but I'm not sure if that was necessary.

I'm very happy with the new bulbs. They're a bit whiter than the old ones, but they dim very nicely.

In the spring/summer of 2011, I bought a LED bulb from bitcoingadgets.com (or something like that) for what is now worth $300. I wanted to support the budding Bitcoin merchants, and that was the only thing they had I really needed. The bulb itself is still fine.

I'm right at $20 a bulb since the majority of bulbs in our house are in ceiling cans and on dimmer switches. Best bulb I've found are these http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ... [amazon.com] . And I've found that with LED's you really should just use one brand/color so every time one bulb burns out I order a two pack to get ahead.

Cost $7 for two bulbs at AutoZone so I choose the $5+ option. I figure I bought 1 bulb for $7 and got a backup for free (so next time the blinker needs replacement I won't need to make another purchase).

Replaced the 3-way bulb in a lamp with a Cree LED 3-way bulb. They think very highly of their product... and price it accordingly. If it doesn't exhibit any issues I'll start converting all the CFLs I bought 5 or 6 years ago to LEDs as they need to be replaced.

I've been mostly buying LED's, expensive as hell ($12 for candelabra, $20 for flood, $7 for 60 watt) but so far so good, haven't had any of them burn out, I imagine they're saving me quite a bit in electricity. IF they last as long as they say they will (10+ years) they'll be well worth it, but we'll see of they live up to their claims better than those no good, useless, short lived, toxic piece of crap CFL bulbs.

If I need a light bulb, I buy a light bulb. I don't really remember the price (I may have a quick look in the shop to avoid taking one which costs twice as much as the one just next to it, but I definitely forget about the price before leaving the shop. In fact I even often forget that I have to buy a light bulb when I'm at the shop, and I remember it only when I come back home)

I wish I knew -- the one I have to replace the most often is the one that I have outside my back door on a motion sensing fixture; I've been using CFLs, but they die in 1-2 years, typically over the winter.... but the one I last replaced was an 'appliance bulb' in my dryer... it probably cost me more in gas driving all over the place to find the right bulb. (and the bulb had broken, so I didn't know the exact shape.... so the first bulb I bought was too big to fit)

Same here. I have two fans in the living room that take the chandelier type bulbs. I have replaced 3 of the 4 bulbs in each with CFLs over the last 10 years owning the house. Each of them still has an original incandescent still burning, but the CFLs are all dead and need to be replaced. Even if you factor in any supposed energy savings, the extra cost of the bulb and the fact that they don't last near as long as incandescents make them a poor choice.

Could be just one of those old wives tales but I've heard DO NOT PUT CFL's into ceiling fans. Something about them being very susceptible to shock/vibration. I've seen people go through a 10 pack of CFL bulbs in a month in those things.

Fluorescent bulbs do contain mercury, but coal plants also emit mercury. Using a fluorescent bulb instead of an incandescent may mean less mercury goes into the environment, because it requires less power and therefore less coal needs to be burned to power them. They also don't break often. I've never had one break and I've used perhaps 100 CFL bulbs. They often do take a while to reach full brightness, though.

I've bought some LED bulbs recently and we've been very satisfied with the light. They reach full

If a coal plant breaks, it does not do so in my home. It does not spill its mercury in my rug from which the best cleanup manuals seem to imply it can never quite be removed as a long term environmental toxin.

CFLs are the new "Green Run" and the LEDs are only getting better and better, in my insufficiently humble opinion.

The coal plant doesn't release mercury when it breaks, it does so at all times. You've breathed more mercury from a coal plant so far in your life that if you took a joba s a CFL cleanup specialist and didn't wear any protection, coal would still be the #1 source of mercury exposure.

Not in a frequency that is visible to the human eye (typically in the kHz range). Unfortunately, many LED bulbs do flicker visibly (and annoyingly). Maybe you are confusing CFL and LED?

Yep, this is generally true. All the CFLs with electronic ballasts that I have seen use a high frequency. It is typically 14kHz or 20kHz. Combined with the afterglow of a fluorescent tube, it should generate very stable light. Good LED bulbs do not flicker either, and in my opinion should always be driven with DC. However, as you say, there are ones which do flicker. I have some Philips LED bulbs which have extremely stable light output. Then I have a cheap DealExtreme LED, which has a grimy flicker (150 -